Ad Watch - KFC $10 Challenge
OK, I was going to let this go, but this commercial from KFC touting its $10 challenge just irritates me. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can view here: KFC $10 Challenge Promo
Maybe I dislike this commercial because it actually worked to the extent that my nine year old asked if we could have KFC for dinner because it would save money. Since I can consistently feed our brood on less than $10 a meal, I don’t like the message being sent that $10 a meal is acceptable.
Maybe it is because I challenge anyone to feed a family of four at Kentucky Fried Chicken for less than $10 unless two of those people are preschoolers. In fairness, the family in the commercial is only three people, one adult and two children, but that makes it even worse. If I can feed our family, including one adult male who eats more than should be humanly possible without turning into a big tub-o-lard (and really, he doesn’t gain weight - the unfairness of it all), an almost 13 year old who is turning into that teenaged eating machine we’ve all heard of, a nine year old, a toddler and myself for under $10, then feeding this size 8 woman in the commercial and her two small children is not that impressive.
But ultimately, what gets my goat is that it’s an incredibly stupid comparison and that means that KFC thinks we’re stupid enough not to notice.
I’m not going to subject this commercial to a huge amount of investigative objectivity and scrutiny, because frankly, it doesn’t need it. I think we’re fine going with some general assumptions, don’t you?
- “Seven pieces of chicken is HOW much?” So asks the incredulous little girl of the store butcher. Sweetheart, you’re not asking the right questions. Your 7 piece value meal will include both white meat and dark meat, so you need to be specific about which pieces you want, and frankly, the butcher should send you over to the whole chickens in the first place. They’re much less expensive.
- Flour. They buy a 5 pound bag of flour. I don’t think you can use a whole bag of flour when you make seven pieces of fried chicken. That would be some incredibly crispy chicken.
- The little boy gets handed the worst line in the commercial, because he has to ask the hapless stock boy if he has the secret herbs and spices. He doesn’t, of course, because they’re secret, but it didn’t take me long to find a recipe online that probably isn’t too far off:
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 tablespoon oregano leaves
1 tablespoon powdered sage
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons dry minced parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons garlic salt
2 tablespoons onion salt
2 tablespoons chicken bouillon powder (or 4 cubes, mashed)
1 package Lipton tomato Cup-a-Soup mixPlace all ingredients in blender and pulse for 3-4 minutes to pulverize, or rub through a fine strainer. Store in an airtight container so the spices will not lose their potency. Makes about 3/4 cup.
Add 1 ounce mix to every one cup of flour for coating chicken.
Holy grocery receipts, Batman! I’m guessing buying even the smallest container you can find of all of the spice ingredients would be at least $45 - challenge over, KFC wins!
Of course, they don’t really dwell on the detail that if you actually did buy all of the ingredients for the secret spice recipe, you’d have enough to make probably a month’s worth of fried chicken. Details, schmetails.
- The narrator then confirms for us that you can’t cook a 7 piece dinner with a side and four biscuits for less than $10, but lookie here, KFC to the rescue with that meal for $9.99, pre-tax, no beverages, and no pesky leftover ingredients in your kitchen that you could use to make other meals at home.
This commercial reminds me of double talking politicians. It isn’t exactly LYING since you couldn’t possibly make that meal for $10 if you didn’t have any of the ingredients on hand, but it’s certainly not telling the truth, is it?
